Up to one million people to watch London Olympics’ Ceremony

All eyes are fixed at London for the grand opening ceremony of 2012 Olympics. Every sportsperson and sports-fan is looking forward to London for the sporting events and competitions to follow.

Director of Oscar-winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Danny Boyle will produce the grand ceremony which will be watched by a crowd of 60, 000 thousands in the main stadium built in East London.

Moreover, a global audience of more than a billion set to tune in across the globe. London will set itself apart, as it has so often down the centuries, by being different for Beijing.

The watchers will be urged to join in sing-a-longs and help create spectacular visual scenes at an event that sets the tone for the sporting show, when 16,000 athletes from 204 countries share the thrill of victory and despair of defeat with11 million visitors.

The opening ceremony will also answer the question of seven years of planning, construction and disruptions, and a price tag of $14 billion during one of the country’s worst recessions.

Media coverage in the last few weeks has been dominated by security firm G4S’s admission that it could not provide enough guards for Olympic venues, meaning thousands of extra soldiers had to be deployed at the last minute, despite its multi-million-dollar contract from the government.

Calls for an official commemoration of the tragedy at the opening ceremony have so far been refused.  Heavy traffic in central London and severe delays on Britain’s creaking train system have added to the grumbling.

A series of doping scandals have also tarnished the Games’ image in the buildup, with at least 11 athletes banned so far, and Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papachristou became the Olympics’ first “twitter victim” when she was withdrawn from the team over tweeted comments deemed racist.

All of that is likely to be forgotten as attention around the globe turns to the opening ceremony, which begins at 2000 GMT and ends more than three hours later.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jul 27 2012. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.